


Cold comfort

by katiebuttercup



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-18 19:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11881398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiebuttercup/pseuds/katiebuttercup
Summary: Sherlock misjudges a criminal's desire to stay free and Molly suffers as a result





	1. Chapter 1

BBC owns everything 

She was sure that waking up wasn't always this painful. Molly's body protests, insists on falling back into blissful sleep but her brain rebels and slowly, slowly Molly forces her eyes open. 

Everything is too bright and for a moment Molly shuts her eyes against the glare. When she opens them again everything feels fuzzy at the edges. She twitches her left hand relieved to feel the sensation in her fingers. She tries to flex her right hand, momentarily panicking when the appendige refuses to comply. 

Something is pinning her hand to the bed, or someone. Molly's mouth forms a "o" shape when she recognises Sherlock's head. 

But why was Sherlock sitting at her bedside facedown on her bed with her hand in his?. 

She flexes her hand but after days of not being used she hasn't got the strength and Sherlock doesn't move. The sensation of a few days of beard growth burns her knuckles. 

"You should let him rest, he hasn't slept in four days," 

Molly looks at the towering figure at her doorway, Mycroft Holmes looked as impenatrable as ever. 

It takes Molly five tries to get her voice to obey her. In the end she only gets out half her sentence anyway. 

"How long....sleep....happened?"

"You have been asleep for four days, there were...complications, your heart stopped beating several times and measures were taken" a normal person would have omitted such details but Mycroft continued on blithely.

"As to what happened you were shot Miss Hooper. Mr Jackson seemed to resent Sherlock's insistence that he pay for his crimes and unfortunately you were in the firing line. So to speak."

Molly blinked back tears. Why was she crying? Didn't she have any control? 

"I..."

A beeping sound began to chime unpleasantly in the background as Molly tried to breathe. The pain began to overwhelm her, crashing over her in waves. She didn't sense Sherlock coming awake at her side or his arms wrapping around her or the nurses that hurried to her side everything shuddered once and then went dark. 

* 

Sherlock strode from one side of Molly's hospital room to the other. Molly was safely sedated, brown hair spread across the pillow the alarms blissfully silent. It had been a shock, waking up to alarms blaring and Molly looking closer to death then that horrible night. 

He readjusted his suit jacket, he felt better after a shower. It had been the quickest shower of his life, unwilling as he was to leave Molly's side for even that short time. 

"Perhaps you should go outside before you break something," Mycroft observed.

Every muscle tense Sherlock spun and began his circuit of the room once more. "Get rid of that anger before Miss Hooper awakens,"

"I'm not angry," Sherlock says, each word clipped and deadly. 

"Of course you are," Mycroft returns easily. "You're one moment away from ripping one of those machines not connected to Miss Hooper out of the wall. I do however insist that you do not. Resources are scarce in the NHS,"

"I. AM. NOT" Sherlock says waspishly. 

Mycroft studies the handle of his ever present umbrella. "Of course it must be difficult for you to be so angry at Miss Hooper,"

"I. AM. NOT. ANGRY. WITH. MOLLY" 

"No, why would you be?," Mycroft says, "why would you be angry that Molly took a bullet for you?" He picked a cuticle. "That she lay in your arms bleeding out, no of course not."

Sherlock locks a snarl behind his teeth, he'd deleted that night but there's an echo in the back of his mind that won't leave him alone. 

"She shouldn't have been there!" Sherlock growls.

"You invited her, a simple case not even an eight," Mycroft says. "You were wrong."

"I misjudged," Sherlock retorts, "I didn't think he'd use the gun. He'd never so much as fired a gun before."

"Yes well apparently the threat of jail was just the incentive he needed." Mycroft said, "none of those things are Molly's fault," 

"I know!" Sherlock snaps. 

"And yet you still blame Molly, but perhaps being angry at Molly is easier then feeling....well feeling," Mycroft eases himself away from the wall and without looking back leaves. 

Sherlock spits venom but Mycroft is gone.


	2. Chapter 2

When Molly wakes up again, Sherlock hasn't ripped any machines out of the wall, although he's been kicked out by security twice for yelling at nurses. He'd apologised each time, feeling small and contrite. The nurses in question had simply patted him on the shoulder gently, their lips pressed into a sad smile and told him not to worry about it. 

He's still angry. Every time he thinks he has a handle on it he looks at Molly's still form in the bed and the ball of rage simmering in the back of his throat erupts. All he can hear is Molly's ragged breathing as she lay in his arms. His own muscles aching at the memory of her in his arms, bleeding out. 

He hears more than sees her wake, hears the rustle of the sheet and her own agony as her body becomes aware of the trauma it's been through. 

She looks tiny in the bed, the hospital gown gaping in places. 

"I was....Jackson...did you get him?" Molly's words were slurred but at least her memory was sound. 

"Yes!" He's being short with her, he had indeed "gotten" Jackson. Not before delivering a beating not unlike the one John had given him. He hadn't fully understood the depth of John's rage until now. But in that moment he'd wanted to Jackson to pay for all of Molly's blood soaking into the pavement. Wanted him to feel the pain Molly must be enduring. That he was enduring. 

Molly is looking out of the window, squinting at the bright light. For something to do Sherlock closes the blind. 

"I'm sorry if I slowed you down," Molly says, she has an attempt at levity. "This is a turn up for the books, you visiting me in hospital instead of the other way around. No grapes though." She tsks playfully. 

"Don't!"

Molly freezes at his tone, it's the hardest he'd talked to her in years. 

"This isn't funny!" Sherlock continues. He takes a breath, controls his breathing. 

"I'm not laughing Sherlock, but it's over now. Case over. You can just delete this and we'll be back to normal,"

Delete it? 

Sherlock almost laughs at the absurdity of such a notion. This case-the scene of Molly's shooting haunts him like a shadow. There is no way to hide from it. 

"You shouldn't have jumped in front of me!" 

"He was going to shoot you Sherlock, it wasn't a conscious decision. I just did it. Would you have been angry at John if he had done if?"

Yes. But he wouldn't be as angry. He didn't even know why he was angry. That was why he hated sentiment and emotion it made no sense to be so angry with Molly, yes she had put herself in danger but now she was in the clear. She was safe the logical thing to do would be to move on. But he couldn't. Not when he felt her tiny hand in his, the pulse fluttering madly against his own nkt quite steady pulse not when her eyes were so scared. Not when he remembered how she looked at him like he was the only safe place in the world. 

Not when he he'd failed her so badly. 

He'd failed people before. It hadn't hurt quite like this. After Mary came the closest, but this flavour of pain was purely Molly. 

"I don't understand why you're acting like this, Sherlock. I know you hate when any of us are hurt but this is...I mean if I didn't know better I'd say that you were acting like...."

"Like he loved you?"

Molly and Sherlock turn in unison. John was looking at Sherlock, eyebrow raised, face open. Gentle and loving but challenging. 

Molly lets out a laugh. 

Sherlock looks like a cornered animal. There is no other thought but to get out. He sweeps past John and into the corridor, ignoring the gasps as he ploughs through the milling staff. He doesn't stop moving until he is out into the fresh air


End file.
